← After Party with Emily Jashinsky
After Party with Emily Jashinsky
Trump’s Iran Gamble, War Cheerleading, and Meta Meddling, with Matt Taibbi, Plus Bill Clinton's WILD Epstein Comment
01:18:48
Emily Jashinsky opens the show with developments in the war with Iran, a deep dive into Trump’s past comments, and whether voters could reasonably interpret his words as a commitment to no forever wars. She also examines what we’ve learned about the leadup to the attacks and Iran’s own radicalization efforts. Then Emily brings in Matt Taibbi of “Racket News” to discuss parallels between current U.S. messaging on Iran and the rhetoric used before the 2003 Iraq invasion, shifting geopolitical stances, how the media narratives have formed, and the justifications for war from the Trump administration. Emily and Matt also discuss how both parties have repeatedly declined opportunities to rein in presidential war authority. They wrap up their discussion with a look at reports Meta may be meddling in the Hungarian election. Emily ends the show with a look at the newly released depositions of Bill and Hillary Clinton and if the former President slipped up on a question about Epstein’s deat...
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- [00:00]
Emily
So good, so good, so good.
- [00:02]
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- [00:10]
Emily
Cause I always find something amazing. Just so many good brands cause there's always something new.
- [00:16]
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- [00:28]
Emily
That's why you rack A KFC tale
- [00:32]
Matt Taibbi
in the pursuit of flavor. The greatest insult the colonel ever suffered
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Guest Expert / Analyst
was being served a wrap that was just a snack by a friend. So he took two crispy tenders, lettuce, tomatoes and pepper mayo and wrapped them
- [00:43]
Emily
in a soft tortilla.
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Guest Expert / Analyst
It wasn't a snack, it was a meal. He called it a twister and never
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Matt Taibbi
called that friend again.
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Emily
The colonel lived so we could chicken the twister now back at KFC Classic or with bacon.
- [00:56]
Matt Taibbi
Also try it spicy.
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Guest Expert / Analyst
It's finger licking good. Prices and participation may vary.
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Emily
Welcome to a somber edition of Afterparty, everyone. Obviously, of course, now America is at war. Our guest tonight is Matt Taibbi of Racket News, who has covered similar events in the past and actually is still one of the best writers on what happened in the lead up to the Iraq war. So we are going to compare some historical artifacts to what we've seen just in the last 72 hours. But the somber mood is directly tied to the loss of American troops. We're praying for those families and for the loved ones of those who have been lost in the last 70, 72 hours. We have so much to get to tonight. I want to start by giving some of my thoughts here and you can of course, take them for what you will. But you know, there's big questions, I always say of more questions than answers. And I know that's frustrating to some people who want me to say what my answer is. But in moments like this, it's especially important, I think, for people in the media to be conscious of the questions that are more salient than some of the answers or the questions that are more important than some of the answers. So you know, President Vice President J.D. vance is, was just on Fox News. I know Netanyahu is about to be on Fox News. So in the next hour or so. So this is a very fluid situation. There's a going on. Let me start by asking a question. What actually happened and is it good? Did we start a war? First, let me say Donald Trump himself used the word war in his late night slash early morning announcement video. That he posted on Truth Social Friday. So we are now at war. We have lost troops. You can say that this is a conflict that's been brewing for years, rolling for years, and you can start the clock in the 1950s. But the president wasn't using the word war to describe the conflict last week and now he is. So that's his definition and I'll take him at his definition as the commander in chief. Now this is very important. It is true that one, as Matthew Schmitz over at Compact points out helpfully, Trump has been bellicose towards Iran for decades and that includes on the campaign trail in 2024. Check the record, it is extensive. He has been an Iran hawk for a very, very long time now. Two, it's also true that Trump said this is a quote, I'm not going to start war, I'm going to stop wars. So as with on many other points, Trump voters take him seriously and not literally. And to Schmitz's point, many probably interpreted that as avoiding quagmires. Trump saying we're going to avoid quagmires, we're going to avoid dumb wars, we're going to win wars and we're not going to get involved in long, foolish wars. That's probably how a lot of people took it because again, he was very bellicose about Iran. Now others, I think desperate for an end to all of the foreign adventurism heard those quotes and they believed Trump or they at least believed that Trump would be the better bet, if that makes sense. So I want to play this clip now. Roll the tape. Here's a little bit of what Trump himself said.
- [04:50]
Guest Expert / Analyst
We are finally putting America first.
- [04:54]
Emily
This is the 2020 campaign.
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Guest Expert / Analyst
Our policy of never ending war, regime change and nation building is being replaced
- [05:03]
Emily
by the clear eyed pursuit of American interests.
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Guest Expert / Analyst
I'm proud to be the only president
- [05:09]
Emily
in decade not start a new war. Everyone said, oh, he's going to start.
- [05:15]
Guest Expert / Analyst
They said he a war.
- [05:16]
Emily
I'm not going to start a war, I'm going to stop wars. Okay, so that's, those are some quotes from 2020, 2024. And I think a lot of people interpreted those, especially people who are so desperate for an end to what's happened in the Middle east over the last couple of decades. People wanted an end to that and they interpreted Trump saying literally I have that quote, I'm not going to start war, I'm going to stop wars. They interpreted that as him saying he's not going to start wars, he's going to stop wars. You can say that's foolish. You can say that's silly for anybody to believe that. You can say Iran gave him no choice. You could say Israel gave him no choice. But that is what he said. And I think a lot of voters reasonably interpreted that as him pledging to do everything he could to stop war, to stop adventurism abroad. I don't think, I don't think normal people who went to the polls with that on their mind were unreasonable for adding that into their calculus. People are busy. They don't have time to pay attention to literally every single thing Donald Trump says. And he said that over and over again, over and over again. Yes, it's true. He also was hawkish towards Iran over and over again. But that's a pretty specific thing to say. I'm not going to start war. I'm going to end war. To be clear, we are now at war by the president's definition. Now, who started it? By our own definition, by the Trump administration's definition? Well, as always, like I said, you can go start the clock. You can wind it all the way back and go through the tit for tat. This goes back to the west wanting oil, yes, but it also, and I think this is the more important point, goes to the west wanting to prevent the expansion of Soviet power, rightfully or wrongfully. With regard to Mesa Dag now, there are all kinds of concerns, not just among Mossadegh supporters, but about the nationalization of oil in Iran. And we were paranoid at the dawn of the nuclear age, rightfully show. So we could use some of that same paranoia now. But let. Let's listen to this clip of Marco Rubio, who did a briefing on Capitol Hill today and clearly said in this conflict we could talk macro versus micro. But we're in the macro level now. I'm sorry, we're in the micro level now. And this is what Marco Rubio said about who struck first.
- [07:55]
Marco Rubio
It was abundantly clear that if Iran came under attack by anyone, the United States or Israel or anyone, they were going to respond and resp. Against the United States. The orders had been delegated down to the field commanders. It was automatic. And in fact, it bear to be true. Within an hour of the initial attack on the leadership compound, the missile forces in the south and in the north, for that matter, had already been activated to launch. And so the President made the very wise decision. We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action.
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Ad Voice
Did you tell lawmakers that there was an imminent threat?
- [08:27]
Marco Rubio
There absolutely was an imminent threat. And the imminent threat was that we knew that if Iran was attacked and we believed they would be attacked, that they would immediately come after us and we were not going to sit there and absorb a blow before we responded. We went proactively in a defensive way to prevent them from inflicting higher damage. Had we not done so, there would have been hearings on Capitol Hill about how we knew that this was going to happen and we didn't act preemptively to prevent more casualties and more loss of life.
- [08:54]
Emily
So there you go, preemptively, proactively, in a defensive way. Now, this is not semantics. I think Marco Rubio is absolutely correct there, that if the intelligence was as he seemed to suggest, that Israel was about to strike Iran, was about to initiate attacks on Iran, that there would be hearings on Capitol Hill saying, hey, Trump administration, why did you not join this effort? Why are you late to the game? I think he's correct about that. We have plenty of leverage over Israel, by the way. I don't want to get into all of that right now. That would be a reasonable response, like, hey, if you didn't want to do this, Israel said it was going to do it, you didn't want to do it, you didn't think it was wise, but your hand was forced because of Israel, why didn't you use your leverage over Israel? We don't know what happened behind the scenes. Maybe they tried, maybe it failed, or maybe there are people in the Trump administration, including the president, seemingly, who wanted to do this and they should make those arguments clearly and honestly. You should always be honest with the public. When you're talking about people's lives and when you're talking about death, when you're talking about committing troops, you should always be honest. That was very honest from Marco Rubio. Unusually honest, I would say, not for Rubio, but for anybody leading us into war. For politicians in general, that was pretty honest. We'll see how much more of that we get. But people deserve that when war is on the line. So the question then you have, you have Rubio saying, it's clear we attacked proactively. This was preemptive. Was it legal? As ever. My position on that is our current war powers are completely out of step with the spirit of the Constitution and with the framers vision. But they can basically be cooked up legally to meet technical thresholds very easily, especially in the first 60 to 90 days of a conflict. So, yes, it should be voted on by Congress. But I also think we've dispensed with the tradition of Article 1 powers the spirit, the tradition of the spirit of Article 1 powers a very long time ago. And again, you can basically cook up a legal argument to meet the threshold pretty easily, satisfy the, the definition easily enough, satisfy the law easily enough. And process and substance are intertwined. Yes, but a lot of Trump's critics are now cloaking their substantive arguments with him in process. I'm sorry, substantive agreements with him in process complaints. So there's that. Everyone should ask Democrats who are raging against Trump right now whether or not they have an actual substantive disagreement if they, if they could vote on whether or not Trump should have done that, would they have voted yes or no, or are they just cloaking their support for it in complaints about war powers now? I think complaints about war powers are very important. I think they're using them cynically right now. So is it going to work? Let's ask for the objectives. What is what going to work? Will it work? Well, what is the it? Caroline Levitt laid some of this out. I'll put it back up on the screen in a post on X just a few hours ago. So she said on Saturday, President Trump released a statement laying out clear objective objectives to the American people for Operation Epic Fury. Let's all be clear eyed about this and take the administration's words seriously. So Caroline says, let me reiterate those objectives. Destroy the Iranian regime's missiles and raise their missile industry to the ground. Annihilate the Iranian regime's navy. Ensure the regime's terrorist proxies can no longer destabilize the region or the world and attack our foes. Stop them from making and using IEDs or roadside bombs which have gravely wounded and killed thousands and thousands of people, including millions of American, including many Americans. Caroline said that is true in Iraq. By the way, Secretary Hagseth talked about that today. As a veteran, Caroline goes on to say another objective is guarantee that Iran can never obtain a nuclear weapon. Weapon. Preventing this radical regime and its terrorist leaders from threatening America and our core national security interests is a clear eyed and necessary objective. All right, so those are the objectives. Does it work? Well, I was reading the Free Press this morning. They actually had a range of opinions on this from people who are worth listening to. Neil Ferguson. There was Elliot Ackerman who was against the move. But let me start with Neil Ferguson. I'm basically going to be reading now the comments of people who are largely supportive or very hopeful about the success. And I'm not just picking on the Free Press. I actually read a lot of the Free Press. And I found these particular op EDS to be useful. So Neil Ferguson said, quote, is the this the cost? Is this the cast of characters for a full blown Iranian civil war as opposed to regime alteration? No one knows. Or is the real risk that Iran implodes and creates a vacuum of power that gets filled as former Israel, Israel, Israel Defense Minister Yoav Galant warns, Biden ascended Turkey. Again, no one knows. End quote. Yes, it wasn't just Yoav Galant. It was also also former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, who was saying, this is his actual quote, that Turkey is the new Iran. So no one knows. That's in the span of about 3 sentences, what Neil Ferguson reiterated, reiterated twice. Now here's a very hopeful Simon Sebag Montefiore in the Free Press, also historian. He says, quote, this is the great gamble of the greatest gambler of all, the command chief in American history. Its stakes are regional, if not planetary, its causes admirable and noble. Its opportunity may be unique and providential. Its prizes are desirable and constructive. But its risks are colossal, its perils eye watering and its consequences uncertain, not just in the Middle east, but for the world game and American democracy itself. That makes me feel much better. We all agree that it's extremely risky. Even Michael Duran, who wrote in the Free Press again in support of this. Air power alone cannot fully eliminate a dispersed missile network. If the conflict lasts long enough, and if the IRGC manages to launch enough missiles, American Israeli interceptor stockpiles will grow thin. If oil markets convulse and American casualties mount, political pressure might rise in Washington. Much of Trump's own domestic political coalition remains wary of foreign entanglement. In other words, the IRGC is banking that it can weaponize them. Duran goes on to write, trump is gambling that precision force can reconfigure the Iranian state without chaos. It's a high risk strategy, but it has a realistic chance of succeeding. All right, so there's a realistic chance of succeeding. That's the quote. According to one of the most supportive voices in favor of this war, who also explains that it's high risk after Iraq and Afghanistan. Let me just ask, is that wise? I can't say 100%, yes or no, but you can probably tell I'm skeptical. Some believe this gives us an edge on China, neutralizing their biggest supporter in the Middle East. Others actually believe that it will deplete our military capacity and give China an edge because we'll be depleted, bogged down, distracted by another conflict in the Middle East. There are conflicting opinions, even on that again, nobody knows. To quote many of the people in support of this war, we were told Iran would be put in their place, had been put in place in their place in July. How many more troops have to die for that to finally be true? Here's what worries me. This is not a solution. A solution to an intractable conflict with mutually exclusive theological, eschatological and existential elements. And that's what this is. Israel is a country that was founded on existential terror. Jewish people were nearly wiped off the face of the earth and eliminated by industrial scale racism and anti Semitism. Some of the victims of the Holocaust are still living and in Israel and many of them, many of their children are a part of the government. They're citizens of the country. They are voting in Israel. They are rightfully horrified for their future. They are scared. And consequently, by the way, I heard Tucker Carlson say this, I think he's correct. They want to be a quote, unrivaled regional power. And that is understandable, that is in their interest because some of their neighbors also have eschatological and theological claims to the same land and to their existence. Khamenei is not just a cult of personality like a Maduro. He led a spiritual movement that consumed not as some not insignificant portion of the country that has now been thrust into chaos and with plenty of weapons where people will also potentially flee from as refugees. So I, I wanted to pull this clip of Kasra. I'm not going to pronounce any of this correctly. As, as you know, I'm not going to pronounce any of this correctly. Agrabi, who is the director of the Islam, who is the director of the, the research into the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps at United Against Nuclear Iran. This is going to be a little bit of a long clip. I do want you to hang in there with me because I think it's very explanatory about what is actually going on here. So I'm going to play it now.
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Kasra Agrabi
Since 2009, the IRGC focused interview with the sun from years ago that it's been radicalizing its members and their families. And this is the militaristic doctrine of matter. Now, amongst Islamist ideologies, the militaristic doctrine of Mahdism is the most extremist doctrine. It's a Shia doctrine primarily, but because of how extreme it is, we actually see isis, Al Qaeda using it as part of radicalization. So this doctrine is all centred around the return of the so called Hidden Imam who Shia Muslims believe was withdrawn into A state of disappearance, miraculous state of disappearance by God in 874 AD, one day he will return, bringing justice to the world. He will reappear to do this, by the way, according to Shia, historic Shia narrations, he will return with an army of 313 commanders that will wage a war against the infidels, the non Muslims. And prior to his arrivals, prior to Mahdi's arrival, prior to the Hidden Imam's arrival, there will be an apocalyptic war where Jews worldwide will be eradicated and killed.
- [19:34]
Emily
There you go.
- [19:35]
Kasra Agrabi
Now The IRGC since 2009 has been indoctrinating its recruits on the basis that the IRGC is the militaristic vehicle to speed up Mahdi's return. Because they have been communicating and radicalizing their recruits and stating that there are barriers to the Hidden Imam's return. The biggest barrier, they claim, is the existence of the State of Israel.
- [20:04]
Emily
Okay, I'm going to stop it there. He goes on for longer. Really important thing. Nobody really talks about it. Matiism. So let me put up on the screen this article from Raymond, Raymond Ibrahim, who is a critic of Islam. You should go watch a podcast he did recently with Victor Davis Hansen. He's an Arabic speaker, scholar on Islam and he again, like I said, he's critical of Islam. But he wrote, you know, to the point that we just heard. And often this Mahdism is made by people who are trying to support hawkishness against Iran, backers of Israel. But actually, I think it's in many ways an argument against what is happening right now. Here is Raymond Ibrahim writing. Iran is getting more radical, not less. He says, in short, while Mahdism has been around for ages, certain developments, a recent uptick in indoctrination and an entire generation of fanatical Mahdi is coming of age and at the helm of Iran make it especially dangerous in the current era, though few in the west are even aware of its existence and role. He goes on to say, in other words, when it comes to Iran and nukes, the so called quote unquote balance of power theory does not apply. According to this widely accepted model, the more nations have nuclear weapons, the more, quote, balanced they are apt to behave toward one another. No one nation will be tempted to press the button if it knows that doing so will cause the button to be pressed against it. This, however, only applies to rational nations interested in self preservation. Okay, it's obvious. The implications of that are obvious. And as Raymond writes, that has been embedded into the RRGC for a long time. Not every member of the IRGC was just killed, as we know, so not even the entire leadership was killed. And so that is what's happening in Iran. It is not representative of the entire population of Iran by any means, and I wouldn't want to imply that is the case. But it's not insignificant. It's not insignificant. So Iran is a very Messy country of 90 million people, many of whom are radicals who hate Israel, they hate the West. And if we destroyed their nuclear sites and set them back decades or a decade, as we were told months ago, is the best argument that it's wise to thrust their country into chaos and hope what comes next is better? Hope that a new generation of Iranians isn't seduced into religious radicalism, or at least enough of them to constitute a formidable political power? Is that worth this much American blood and treasure? Uncertain as the final sacrifice will be at this moment, will it make the situation better or worse? I will concede the calculus changes here. If it's true Trump's hand was forced by Israeli action, though, we also have plenty of leverage to influence those decisions. As I said earlier, if we wanted to, then, though, assuming our hand was forced, the administration would have to consider whether an action was an even worse alternative. We don't know what happened behind the scenes fully yet, but here's what J.D. vance said just last hour on Fox News talking about Trump. Quote, he didn't just want to keep the country safe from a nuclear weapon for the first three to four years of his first term. He wanted to make sure Iran never had a nuclear weapon and decided to take action to protect the nation's security. Four years of his term, I think J.D. vance said, all right, you want to take action to protect the nation's security. It's a little bit different than what was said on the campaign trail. Now, finally, I just want to conclude with a word of encouragement to my friends in independent media and conservative media. It took us a long time in the aughts to recognize what was happening in Iraq as a country. Now, there were some clarion voices who were out there, had many on the left, not all. Bob Novak was of course, slandered as. What was he called, like an anti Semitic Jew by David Fromm in the Atlantic for opposing early stages of the war. But think of how long it took us to recognize that ISIS was stepping into the power vacuum, that ISIS was coming out of the power vacuum. So my word of encouragement is to call balls and strikes. That is what is best for all of us. That is what is best for all of us who consume news. I'm one of them. Be careful, be careful. This is serious stuff. The future of humanity, really, in a nuclear world. China has nuclear weapons. We have nuclear weapons. Russia has nuclear weapons. So be careful. And don't be afraid to criticize the administration. Because while there are many people, many Republican voters, many conservatives who support what the President did, people also deserve your critical coverage. If you tell them you're going to do critical coverage and you're going to call balls and strikes, you should do that not just for your own career, but for the sake of your soul. Be honest, call those balls and strikes. And also remember that a lot of my theory here is that the weirdos, the random people who have been created in that space who are critical of Trump from the populist side and are legitimately fringe characters, racist characters, the rest, some of their viewership, is not from people who agree with their racism and bigotry. Some of it is from people who are so desperate for a criticism of Trump from the right that they tune to those people. So keep that in mind. All of us, keep that in mind. And I've talked way too long at this point. I'm going to take a quick break and bring in Matt Taibbi in one moment. But first, I have been planning ahead lately so that I can responsibly enjoy a few drinks with friends after a long week or after a long day, maybe after a long hour, maybe after a long 15 minutes. And my trick for staying balanced is Zbiotics Pre alcohol. It's the world's first genetically engineered probiotic created by PhD scientists to help you avoid rough mornings after drinking. When we drink, alcohol turns into a toxic byproduct in the gut. And it's the buildup, not actually dehydration, that leaves you feeling lousy the next day. Zebiotics Pre alcohol produces an enzyme that helps break this byproduct down so you can wake up feeling more like yourself. Just make it your first drink of the night. You gotta take it first. Enjoy responsibly, and you'll set yourself up to feel your best tomorrow. I tried zebiotics before, actually. What? It was before. Like, the first time I tried it was before, like a beach trip. And you really do notice a difference the next day. I even made it out the next morning to breakfast without feeling sluggish. So let's be real. Usually a Friday night out means a Saturday morning spent canceling workout classes. But since I started incorporating pre alcohol, that glass of wine doesn't disrupt the morning flow so much. Actually, I'm more of a beer person, as you know. But remember to add to ZBiotics.com afterparty and use the code AFTERPARTY at checkout for 15 off. So good, so good, so good.
- [26:49]
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- [26:56]
Emily
to rack because I always find something amazing. Just so many good brands because there's always something new.
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- [27:18]
Emily
We heard you shouldn't talk about going
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- [27:22]
Matt Taibbi
Light a candle, pour some wine, grab a roll.
- [27:26]
Emily
The soft kind for a little me time. Charmin Ultra soft smooth hair, wavy edges for my rear.
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Emily
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Emily
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- [27:48]
Emily
Let's bring in our guest tonight so I stop monologuing. Matt Taibbi of Racket News. Matt, I'm so sorry for talking so long. Thank you for being here.
- [27:57]
Matt Taibbi
Good to talk to you, Emily.
- [27:59]
Emily
And also congratulations to what you guys have been up to at Racket. I'm loving the new swamp newsletter. Loving Emily Cop Ryan Lovelace is fantastic. It's so good to see you guys growing, Matt.
- [28:10]
Matt Taibbi
Oh, well, thank you. I appreciate it. Yeah, that was an interesting move. We know we're trying to focus more on just investigative reporting. And as you know, when you have like these sort of one person substacks, it's, it's kind of hard to do anything that' in depth. So that, that the idea behind that was to bring in more reporters.
- [28:32]
Emily
It's much needed.
- [28:34]
Matt Taibbi
Terrific.
- [28:34]
Emily
So it's is much needed. I want to talk to you about some of what we're seeing from the press right now and actually from the government right now, Matt. Because, you know, I remember reading, I think we even have this, this is one of your pieces from a few years ago where, like, I don't want to make you feel old, Matt. I was like 10 during the invasion of Iraq in 2003. But I, I was reading one great piece for you. Piece from you. Yeah, this is F5. That's always stuck with me. This was from 2019. You wrote about the Scarlet Letter Club and you talked about Dick Cheney going on Meet the Press. This is a pretty famous example. But going on Meet the Press to launder his own intelligence through the New York Times. I think it was a Judith Miller story or co byline, if I'm remembering correctly. But you've been a student of how these, how the propaganda machine sort of whirs into action. And I wanted to play for you a couple of, of clips of what we've been hearing from the government. Let's start with we're hearing a lot. This is not necessarily Iraq. This is not necessarily Iraq. So let's hear this clip of this is Pete Hexa this morning at a conference, press conference at the Pentagon. This is S. This is going to be S. Let me see, let me make sure I have the exact right one. This should be S.3. This is not an endless war.
- [29:57]
Guest Expert / Analyst
To the media outlets and political left screaming endless wars.
- [30:01]
Emily
Stop.
- [30:03]
Guest Expert / Analyst
This is not Iraq. This is not endless. I was there for both. Our generation knows better and so does this president. He called the last 20 years of nation building wars dumb. And he's right. This is the opposite. This operation is a clear, devastating, decisive mission. Destroy the missile threat, destroy the Navy, no nukes. Israel has clear missions as well for which we are grateful. Capable partners. As we've said since the beginning, capable partners are good partners, unlike so many of our traditional allies who wring their hands and clutch their pearls, hemming and hawing about the use of force.
- [30:51]
Emily
And now let's rewind the clock to hear from Donald Rumsfeld. S5
- [30:58]
Ad Voice
I can't tell you if 2002, the use of force in Iraq today
- [31:02]
Emily
would, would last five days or five
- [31:05]
Matt Taibbi
weeks or five months. But, but it certainly isn't going to last any longer than that.
- [31:11]
Guest Expert / Analyst
President Trump has all the latitude in the world to talk about how long it may or may not take. Four weeks, two weeks, six weeks. It could move up, it could move back.
- [31:20]
Emily
And that was a juxtaposition from the group home of the brave and anti Trump group. Finally, Matt, for good measure, let's roll. Mark Wayne Mullen talking about Iraq, I mean, Iran,
- [31:36]
Guest Expert / Analyst
It's up to the Iraqi people or I'm sorry, the Iranian people to choose their next, their next leader. It's up to them to rise up and kick this regime out of place. If they do not, then they will be with a different leader, but the same regime, if they choose to get a different leader, that we can have a relationship with which we Would love to. Prior to 1979, we had a good relationship with Iran. But if they choose to pick up a leader, Stuart, we will surround that leader, not necessarily with boots on the ground, but with assets to make sure that that leader can be protected, rise up, and then Iranian people will have the opportunity to choose their next leadership.
- [32:14]
Emily
Just a reminder, Matt, that nobody was talking about forever wars, the buildup to Iraq. In fact, George w. Bush before 9 11, of course, had campaigned against Middle east involvement in forever wars. What say you of the parallel?
- [32:28]
Matt Taibbi
I think it's a direct parallel. Interestingly, the British put out the Chilcot
- [32:36]
Guest Expert / Analyst
report,
- [32:38]
Matt Taibbi
which was like an autopsy of the arguments for war heading into the invasion of Iraq. And one of the interesting revelations of that report was that the Republicans were perfectly fine saying that our reason for going into Iraq was just, we want to change the government, but our European allies were not. And so that's why we cooked up this story about WMDs and an imminent threat and yellow cake and all this other stuff. It would be refreshing if they would just come out and say that the goal is that we want to have a new government there. I mean, when Hegseth says this is not nation building, well, how could it not be if they're. If the goal, yes, you have a clear military objective in destroying the armed services of Iran. But we have an outstanding example of what happens when there's unsuccessful nation building with isis. What is the plan if they're not going to build, you know, a new nation in Iran's place? So this sounds to me like the same kind of stuff that the government said in 2002 and early 2003. It's a little bit different because it's much more sudden. Back then we had a long Runway to this decision and here it kind of crept up on us in a different way. But a lot of the deceptions are similar also. There's also the campaign deception here. Right. You mentioned George Bush campaigning against being the world's policeman. But not getting involved with these kinds of wars was overtly part of Donald Trump's message. And in fact, the decision to go with Vance instead of Marco Rubio. And I remember we had sources who were in the room during that decision making process at the convention site when they were going back and forth over who was going to be the VP and the running mate. All of that was about the question of whether we're going to have this sort of neocon based foreign policy or whether we're going to have this America first. You know, let's enjoy the peace dividend a little bit version of the Trump movement. And, you know, they advertised that the, the more inwardly focused version of Trumpism had won and clearly did not.
- [35:27]
Emily
What do you make of Donald Trump's. I don't, I don't know if contradiction is the right word, because Trump is this unusual political figure who says contradictory things. But, and this is not even just a charitable spin. It's reflective of the reality they're not always mutually exclusive, even though they, they sound mutually exclusive. So I was reading the Matthew Schmitz piece in Compact, which I think rightfully points out that Trump has been an Iran hawk. He's bellicose on Iran for a very long time. At the same time as he was saying he's not going to start wars, he's going to end wars. And people interpreted that as saying, well, we're not doing nation building, we're not doing George W. Bush. What do you make of how he's thinking? I mean, I know I'm like asking you to be the Freud to Trump right now, and I apologize for that. Not really. But, like, what. How is he thinking about this? What should we think about how he's thinking about this?
- [36:20]
Matt Taibbi
I mean, it's so hard to know, right? I mean, Donald Trump is just, is the hardest politician to read and probably in modern history. I can't think of any, anybody who's harder to analyze. Despite the fact that people call him a simpleton, he's anything but simple. He's very difficult, it's very difficult to know exactly what is going through his head at any one moment. But I will say it's been striking reading the news coverage in the last couple of days and seeing expressions of support for this action coming from Mark Carney and Keir Starmer and all of these people who are, have been just sort of overtly enemies of Donald Trump's presidency. And, you know, there is a whiff of a deal in the air here where seems like everybody is getting what they want. Europe clearly wants this because they have an energy problem that was caused in part by the Ukraine war. Ukraine, you see Zelensky offering expressions of support for this because, you know, Iran is, is tied to the Russian regime, right? Or the Russian government. They're using Russian weapons. So this draws the west and Europe and the United States even deeper into the conflict in Ukraine in a way. I mean, there is, there is a way to look at this and think that everybody is getting what they want out of it. Trump is getting essentially support of foreign leaders that he never got before. He's getting, he's getting support in op ed pages that I've never seen before. Thomas Friedman had a kind of half hearted, you know, this was kind of a, I kind of like this sort of article in the New York Times today. And, and suddenly the people who are, you know, calling Donald Trump is, you know, hysterical and, you know, in the pocket of, of Israel, they're, they're not entirely in the majority anymore. Right. There is a, there is a union of interests between the Europeans and America that we haven't seen in a while. So could this, could the whole first part of Trump's presidency have been a negotiation? And that's possible or they just thought of it this weekend? I don't know. I mean, it's impossible to know with him.
- [39:03]
Emily
I'm so glad you brought up the op ed pages. Tom Friedman put on his MAGA hat and had a, like, Miller High life this weekend. Amazing. But, you know, this is interesting because Megan Kelly, obviously on her show today was talking about how she's talked about this before, too, when she was at Fox News. She looks back on that now as seeing the autopsy of the buildup like that. She can, she can look at the now, she can look at now what was happening then as like an autopsy of how the propaganda was made that she would have kind of just implicitly known what to say. This is something Chomsky talks about that you, you know, what does he say to that interviewer? He says, you know, if, if you were being told what to say, the interviewer says to him, like in the 80s, you know, nobody's given me a script. And Chomsky says, well, if you needed a script, you wouldn't be where you're sitting. You're skin. You're sitting here because you don't need a script. So I think we have this clip of Megan that I wanted to ask you about.
- [39:54]
Megan Kelly
Matt, Honestly, Fox News is insufferable right now. Insufferable. I was there for 14 years. I've already told my audience, if I were a Fox News anchor right now, I'd know exactly what to do. Cheerlead, cheer, lead. That's it. It's all about rah, rah, rah, go military. That's what's patriotic. Praise the President, support the troops, support the war day in, day out. They've got one mission, and that's to support these military groups, the military itself and President Trump. It's just folly. But I've interviewed enough soldiers missing legs and soldiers who almost killed themselves due to ptsd, who don't see any value in what they did over there, especially after we gave it up under Joe Biden. That I know now more caution is needed. Cheerleading may make you feel good, may spike your ratings, Fox News, but it doesn't necessarily help the guys who are actually going to have to put those boots on the ground and go fight this war.
- [40:50]
Emily
Matt, it occurs to me as we're listening to this that actually a lot of those guys didn't have big megaphones until independent media, new media came along and gave folks like Sean Ryan access to a, a big megaphone via podcasting and YouTube. Yeah, yeah, that's such a good example on Sean Ryan where he said he's a recovering neocon and of course he's saying this isn't neoconservatism. But hard to see how this doesn't spill into nation building. So talk to us about, because you have studied this for a long time, how the propaganda kind of gets baked in the oven of cable news and the New York Times op ed pages and the like.
- [41:26]
Matt Taibbi
Well, I mean, Megan's absolutely right that, you know, part of this depends absolutely on a completely compliant press that is going to do, you know, what it's told without being told explicitly. Now, that's not the situation. The, the one thing that's very different from between now and 1993 or 1992, I'm sorry, 2002, 2003, is that. But, you know, Donald Trump doesn't have the New York Times, Fox and MSNBC all in his pocket. You know, back then, the entire spectrum of commercial media was on board for this thing. If you remember, famously, MSNBC unhired Jesse Ventura.
- [42:17]
Emily
Yes. And didn't they kick off, what's his name, him for criticizing.
- [42:22]
Matt Taibbi
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So Donahue was getting great ratings and they hired Ventura because he had been a Navy seal. They thought, they mistakenly thought he was going to be for the war. And, and they, when they found out that he wasn't, you know, they, they unhired him. But they, they, he had signed the contract, so he, he got to build himself a house in Mexico. He still has it. He calls it CASA MSNBC. And so they paid him $5 million. But this, that is not the situation that Trump enjoys at the moment. He does have that with Fox News and some of the conservative media. And Megan's probably right, that they're doing substantially the same thing that they, that fox did in 2002 and 2003. The difference is, is that back then the public really needed to be swayed. There was a much more elaborate effort that was made to try to convince people that this was absolutely necessary. And that included the, you know, the development of a National Intelligence Estimate that was heavily edited. And, you know, we didn't find out until well over a decade later that they left out all kinds of things when they told the public about Iraq's ability to manufacture WMVs.
- [43:50]
Emily
Well, that's such an important point, Matt. I just pause quickly on that because we've heard, as we did before Midnight Hammer, competing intelligence reports. So. Well, actually we've, we've heard reports that compete with the administration's line from the administration, meaning that there was no imminent nuclear threat from Iran before Midnight Hammer. That was Tulsi Gabbard's. Well, not her assessment, but the intelligence community's assessment that I think she testified in like April or May of last year in front of Congress too. And then this time around we're hearing all kinds of different examples of why this was necessary. I think we have the clip of JD Vance that we should roll if we can ready because he was just on Jesse Waters a couple of moments ago talking about why this had to happen.
- [44:34]
Guest Expert / Analyst
President has clearly defined what he wants to accomplish. And there's just no way. I said this before the conflict started. I'll repeat it again. There's just no way that Donald Trump is going to allow this country to get into a multi year conflict with no clear end in sight and no clear objective. What is different about President Trump, and it's frankly different about both Republicans and Democrats of the past, is that he's not going to let his country go to war unless there's a clearly defined objective. He's defined that objective as Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon and has to commit long term to never trying to rebuild their nuclear capability. It's pretty clear, it's pretty simple. And I think that means that we're not going to get into the problems that we've had with Iraq and Afghanistan.
- [45:15]
Emily
And bear with me one more time, this is House Speaker Mike Johnson today talking about why we had to do this. When we had to do this. They had to evaluate the threats to
- [45:27]
Guest Expert / Analyst
the US to our troops, to our installations, to our assets in the region and beyond.
- [45:32]
Matt Taibbi
And they determined because of the exquisite intelligence that we had, that if Israel
- [45:39]
Emily
fired upon Iran and took action against
- [45:42]
Matt Taibbi
Iran to take out the missiles, then
- [45:44]
Guest Expert / Analyst
they would have immediately retaliated against US Personnel and assets.
- [45:50]
Emily
We have troops in harm's way and
- [45:52]
Matt Taibbi
we have many Americans in the region and that was of great concern.
- [45:57]
Emily
That actually, to me, sounds like he's almost trying to use Israel as a fig leaf and saying, oh, well, they, you know, they, they tied our hands, but we had to do this anyway.
- [46:04]
Matt Taibbi
So, Matt, all that is Rubio right at the top of your show, right?
- [46:08]
Emily
Yep. Yeah. He said something super similar, like in the same place, within minutes or hours. It was this afternoon, this evening. So I play both of those just because I know that you've reflected on what happened in the lead up to Iraq and of course, Afghanistan as well, but particularly Iraq for these purposes. And we're. They used, they both use the word clear, but this is not very clear at all. We're hearing different things about why this had to happen now. Are we not. Am I crazy? I'm trying to be good faith and understand exactly what's going on. But it seems to me like the messaging is totally muddled.
- [46:42]
Matt Taibbi
They seem to be changing it from minute to minute. And they should frankly have learned the lesson of the Iraq conflict, which, among other things, taught us that the, the American public probably would have preferred it if they had just come out and said what their real objective was. And we know what their real objective was now because of things like the Chilcot Report. We know that people like Don Rumsfeld believed that if we went in and set up a democracy in Iraq, that it would change the politics in the region, that we would, you know, a host of problems from terrorism to encirclement of Israel would go away. And they, you know, they believed one big move, that was the big quote, right. Would, would solve all their problems. Instead, they cooked up this cockamamie story that kept changing and was easily proven untrue and created, you know, a huge problem for the United States after the invasion, which was that, you know, the casus bell for the war had clearly been in error. If they, if they just were straight with us and said we, we want to do this because we think replacing Iran will be advantageous to all of our allies and to us and to. And to Israel, that would probably go over better than this, I think.
- [48:18]
Emily
Well, that's something people saw as different with Trump, actually, is that he kind of said the quiet part out loud.
- [48:23]
Matt Taibbi
Well, right, yeah, but, but then here he is doing this kind of neocon tap dance thing. And, and the one thing that's absolutely, you know, incontrovertible in the wake of the Iraq war is that that did not work, that the messaging was a complete failure, not just in terms of the corruption of the Intelligence process, which was, I, I think was a very serious crime that went unpunished, but also just the, the lying, the undermining of the press. Right. Which never really recovered from that. I mean, Frank, frankly, the, the commercial media in the United States never got over that, that episode. And one of the main things that happened after Iraq was that the people who were the biggest cheerleaders for the WMD line of excuses weren't fired, weren't reprimanded. Didn't you know, they, they weren't removed for getting things wrong. And they're reporting. Except for Judith Miller, a lot of them were promoted to positions of responsibility and they added to this day, major magazines. And that was.
- [49:40]
Emily
How dare you? How dare you. I think I know who you're talking about. His name rhymes with meth. Lodberg, right?
- [49:48]
Matt Taibbi
Yes, it does. Yeah, but we won't point that out.
- [49:53]
Emily
That would be impolite.
- [49:54]
Matt Taibbi
Yeah, it would be impolite. But no, to be serious, that episode was, was really bad for the, the corporate media. It never really recovered from it then. And that's why this is going to go over worse. It's one, it's one of the reasons why, you know, you know, Donald Trump was when he got elected, he thanked podcasters for helping getting him elected. Or maybe it wasn't him, it was, it was Dana White who said that. Right. But either, either way, the, the sort of power of persuasion has moved away from these big corporate enterprises and has moved to the independent media since Iraq and Russiagate. And, you know, for them to go back to that same playbook is odd. Like, why would Trump, Trump of all people should know that there's peril in going this route.
- [50:51]
Emily
Was gonna say that Matt Taibi article I referenced from 2019 about Cheney laundering. The intelligence he planted in the Times on Meet the Press was in the context of Russiagate, if I'm remembering correctly. Yes.
- [51:02]
Matt Taibbi
Yeah, I was trying to bring that up because this was something that was happening repeatedly all the time with, with Russiagate. So for people don't remember the episode, what happened was the Bush administration essentially gave a piece of intelligence about uranium.
- [51:22]
Emily
Right.
- [51:23]
Matt Taibbi
Uranium, I believe it was. Yeah. Right. And, and this was the whole thing about stove piping, where they, they went directly to the source who had the best intel, and then they gave that to the New York Times. And when the New York Times did the story, then Dick Cheney went and Meet the Press and said, you might, might have seen in the, in the New York Times, you know, the other day or yesterday or whatever it was that this major report came out about Iraq's capabilities. And that was something that they did over and over again in, in Russia. They were, you know, somebody, anonymous source would give something to a big paper, the Times or the Post, and then there would be, you know, a quote from a Democratic Party politician, typically, who would say, you know, now, now we see the press is on the case. Right. When they actually.
- [52:13]
Emily
Adam Chef's office.
- [52:14]
Matt Taibbi
Right, yeah. Or it was Hillary, the Hillary for America campaign. Right, right. We saw a couple of instances of that.
- [52:20]
Emily
So to David Korn, who, by the way, wrote about this Dick Cheney thing in his book looking back at how we got into the Iraq War. Anyway.
- [52:29]
Matt Taibbi
Yeah, David Corn. Right. And there was another one in Yahoo. Right? Yeah, exactly. And so it's one of the things that makes this whole thing odd. Of all the people who would think, who should know that it would go over better if, if Donald Trump just got on TV and said, look, I just want to do this. You know, here are. Here are three reasons why I personally want to do this that would go over better than this shifting landscape of excuses that, you know, nobody's going to believe. But the thing about the, the thing about this that's interesting is that we've seen in the Internet age that if enough governments get behind a certain message, that sheer force, multiplying effect of censorship and bots and amplification. De. Amplification and amplification, they are able to, if they have a coordinated message they want. They want to send, get almost anything into positive territory in terms of public support, including electing a president who could barely speak. Right. Like, that's the kind of thing that can be done if you have consensus behind the scenes. That's why it's notable when you see Starmer and Carney and politicians in Germany and Scandinavia suddenly getting up and supporting this, because that's something that Trump never had. Maybe, maybe that's part of what this is all about.
- [54:12]
Emily
Right?
- [54:12]
Matt Taibbi
Like, you know, for the first time, trying to get a presidency that has some institutional support behind it internationally. But I don't know, hard to say.
- [54:23]
Emily
That's a super interesting point. All right, we're going to pick this conversation up in just one moment. Quick break here. The skincare industry, you know, this has been gaslighting women for decades. They're pushing these, like, $200, $300, sometimes even $400 jars of basically, like, chemical sludge that. That barely even penetrate your skin. You should be done with it, throw it away. Van Man's Pearl Eye Cream is skin Care that harnesses the best of nature and at an affordable price. They ditched the garbage, they went straight to grass fed tallow combined with wild caught pearl powder that is one of nature's most nutrient dense anti aging ingredients. And this isn't just about vanity either. Pearl powder has been used for centuries to support eye health and vision. Add deeply penetrating emu and castor oils, royal jelly, organic green tea, frankincense and rose and you got some serious skin tightening and collagen support from ingredients you can actually pronounce. No mystery fillers, no lies, no needles. So give your eyes the care they actually deserve. Go to Vanman Shop afterparty and use code AFTERPARTY for 15 off your first order. That's Vanman Shop Afterparty and use code AFTERPARTY for 15 OFF your first order. Van Man Real ingredients, no exceptions, day or night.
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Matt Taibbi
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Emily
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Matt Taibbi
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Marco Rubio
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Emily
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- [56:31]
Matt Taibbi
And the winner by knockout is Patternay Hannaday.
- [56:37]
Emily
Bring it on. Back now with Matt Taivey of Racket News. Matt, Democrats are cloaking, I think what is to support in many cases, not all, but in many cases for Trump's action in Iran in process complaints. So they're saying he should have gotten a vote in Congress. I think both you and I would probably agree with that, but that's a little bit inconsistent from the likes of, I don't know, Nancy Pelosi. We have a clip. Let's go ahead and listen to former House Speaker Pelosi on Libya.
- [57:07]
Guest Expert / Analyst
Madam Leader, you're saying that the president
- [57:09]
Matt Taibbi
did not need authorization initially and still does not need any authorization from Congress.
- [57:16]
Guest Expert / Analyst
One Libya.
- [57:18]
Ad Voice
Yes, thank you all very much.
- [57:23]
Emily
Yes, thank you all very much. Her comedic timing is on par with the best.
- [57:27]
Matt Taibbi
But you couldn't write this stuff. It's like straight out of the, you know, the thick of it or some of those comedies. But anyway, go ahead. I'm sorry.
- [57:35]
Emily
Well, I mean, you were you were sticking around, like Democratic circles, leftist circles, progressive circles. During the Iraq war, Nancy Pelosi came to be an opponent of that. Many of the people who supported, supported it, came to be staunch opponents of it. That was during the Obama administration. Obama campaigned against the Iraq war and against the Bush era of foreign policy. And I mean, listen, I hear a lot of, I think, reasonable points about war powers, War powers resolution when you have to vote and the like coming from Democrats right now. On the other hand, though, seems like some of them actually, like Chuck Schumer, for example, would not have made a different decision if they were president. I don't know. What do you make of that, Matt? You know, you kind of know this world from that era. You can give us maybe a little comparison point A to point b here in 2026.
- [58:22]
Matt Taibbi
Yeah, they, you know, in that particular instance, by the way, that was another one where they invented all sorts of things ahead of going into a military action. Remember the whole thing about how the story about how the rebels in Libya were distributing condoms to their truth because. Because of all the rapes that they were going to commit, and then that turned out not to be true. Sorry. Right. But they, you know, she is correct, technically, that the authorization to use military force allows presidents to basically invade whomever they want, so long as they make a decision ahead of time designating the target as a designated terrorist organization, which did happen in the case of the Iranian revolutionary guard in 2019, if I'm not mistaken, Trump did that. So then, you know, we noted back then, I remember writing about this, I think, in Rolling Stone, that the moment that he did that, it made any future military action against Iran legal. There have been numerous moments in time since the Bush administration when Congress has had the opportunity to roll back this ridiculous sort of cancellation of the war powers concept in the Constitution and reinstate, you know, congressional approval. And both parties have declined to do it. The Democrats basically blocked these efforts during the Obama administration. And the Republicans have on a number of occasions refused to go forward with restoring congressional approval for these kinds of things. So it's. It, it is technically true, Pelosi. It was technically right. But it's absurd and hypocritical for anybody to complain about process complaints because they've, you know, they've all violated. They've all had. They've all had a chance to do something about it and done nothing.
- [60:38]
Emily
Yeah, I think the AMF has been used in 14 different countries since it was passed.
- [60:42]
Matt Taibbi
At least, I think it's.
- [60:44]
Emily
I've heard different ones. Yeah, I've heard that too. Like 25.
- [60:47]
Matt Taibbi
Yeah, I think it could be even more than that because you know, there was that one. I think when Trump first came into office there was a leak about the number of countries that were being where we had military operations. I believe it was seven countries in that year alone. So it's an enormous number. Brown University did a study on this and the, yeah. The AUMF basically made it possible for us to, to invade anybody even even though the law spells out that the groups have to have had some kind of concrete connection to 9 11. We've invaded and attacked groups and countries that didn't even like groups that.
- [61:32]
Emily
I don't think it's ever been used in Saudi Arabia.
- [61:34]
Guest Expert / Analyst
Right.
- [61:35]
Matt Taibbi
No, it hasn't. And, and that, that's what, that is the one thing that's interested, interesting about this moment though. However, whereas Iraq was not a, an enthusiastic sponsor of terror in the Middle east, you could have said that about a couple of countries. Now the, the 911 and the world Trade center and Al Qaeda that was, those were Sunni terrorist groups. Right. So that wouldn't have been Iran. But the, there are a number of Shia backed terror groups and they are sponsored by Iran. So this would have more of a, there is more of a reason here than there was with Iraq. But it's, I don't know, it's, it's thin at best, it seems to me.
- [62:28]
Emily
Yeah. And people, when you, when you see muddled explanations from the government, that's obviously a red flag and people should remember how long it may take to actually dig down and find out the truth. So much of it is cloaked right now in the intelligence and the like. Matt, before you run, I did want to get your take on a story that caught my attention over the last couple of days because you have, you have followed the censorship machine not just in the United States, but as it's been exported and supported by European elites as well. This European conservative story caught my mind ahead of the elections in Hungary. So the author wrote, several Facebook pages belonging to Hungarian pro government county newspapers were rendered inaccessible on Friday, February 27th. And what could be a politically charged intervention just weeks before the country heads to the polls. Remember of course, that Viktor Orban, who is disliked by much of the west and the European elites and American elites, is on the ballot really in the fight for his political life. So this says, according to posts circulated on Reddit, the Facebook page of Baba Hu, the Baranya county outlet published by Mediaworks, disappeared after a user complaint the complaint reportedly argued the page contained, quote, unquote, war threats, which Meta, Facebook's parent company, deemed to be in breach of its community standards. Shortly afterwards, the Facebook pages, two other outlets in eastern Hungary, were also taken down. The affected publications belong to the pro government media conglomerate Media Works. Again, that's something that Orban, who operates very differently than somebody would in the United States, set up, and in ways, by the way, I would disagree with others in the west would disagree with. And they say together, the pages reportedly commanded hundreds of thousands of followers. The timing is more than suspicious. Hungary will hold parliamentary elections on April 12th. 12th. Matt, this is Facebook, this is Meta. This is Meta, who is allied with Donald Trump in the AI race, the D data center race. Right now, some of these details are murky. It's always hard to tell with social media pages what the actual reason is. If something got flagged accidentally, part of that is by design, so they can say, whoops, this was a mistake. The algorithm did this, we're fixing it. But again, we saw this in Romania. We've seen many other examples of this. And I want to just get your take on what might be going wrong if this reeks to you like some of the other stories that you followed ahead of the. This huge, huge election, by the definition of the elites who are freaking out over Orban in Hungary in just a couple months.
- [64:48]
Matt Taibbi
Yeah, so this, that's a great question, Emily. And, and this story does remind me a lot of the Romania story, which was, I think, an incredible story that got almost no coverage here in the United States because most people don't. Most people don't realize this. What happened in Romania is that an early round of elections put a nationalist named Kalyn Giorgescu in the lead, and he was set to become, you know, win the election in Romania. At that point, the Digital Services act kicked into gear. Now, there was a separation local investigation, but basically there is a European law that has to do with political content online. It's the stuff that I was. And Michael Shellenberger we were researching with the Twitter files. But part of that law does actually allow Europe to cancel elections if they deem an election to have been influenced by foreign actors. Where. And in the case of Romania, the idea was that Russian
- [66:07]
Guest Expert / Analyst
account.
- [66:08]
Matt Taibbi
Yeah, pro Putin accounts had influenced that election and basically lifted Georgescu at the last moment. And so even though it wasn't technically the dsa, that that reversed that election, it was pressure from the eu and it was because they were wielding the club of the DSA over Romania. That essentially made that happen. Now, that's. So that's a censorship law that essentially reversed an election. And it looks, you know, this has the look and feel of the same thing to me, where somebody behind the scenes is making an argument to, To Meta or Facebook that you must remove these pages because they violate, you know, X, Y and Z of the Digital Services Act. If it's not that, that's. That'll be unusual, but it is striking. And, and that is what J.D. vance I, you know, at the beginning of the Trump presidency, we had high hopes because J.D. vance went over there and said, hey, you know, it's not cool to just turn over an election. Like, we may not like these people that they're going to elect, but we can't just throw out the results else. And, you know, now are they going to have the same moral authority to make that argument?
- [67:27]
Emily
I don't know.
- [67:28]
Matt Taibbi
Will they even make that argument? I don't even know.
- [67:30]
Emily
Oh, that's a really important point, right? Yeah, I think my guess is maybe not, unfortunately. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, you just, you just gave me a depressing little note there. That's too bad. Well, yeah, I just wanted to ask a little bit more, one more question on this, because part of your reporting on the Twitter files got into what happened in 20 with the Hunter Biden laptop and the 52 former intelligence. By the way, there were current CIA, active CIA email addresses that were partially being used to organize that letter of former intelligence people saying that it had all the hallmarks of Russian disinformation, the Biden laptop and the New York Post. And so it also happened a bit with COVID as you've covered. This is a machine, and I think a lot of people thought electing Donald Trump would maybe turn that machine off. Is it. Do you see that being true, or is it just sort of in Europe now? Like, I don't even know what to say about how Meta, who is very close to Donald Trump, might potentially be meddling in one of the elections of his. His ally Orban is very skeptical of what's happened in, in Ukraine of Zelensky. Very critical of Zelensky. Little, little cozy with China. Lots of stuff going on there. But. But that's an ally of Donald Trump's. It's very weird to see this happening now with an American company, by the way.
- [68:52]
Matt Taibbi
Yeah, absolutely. It's a little. It's odd to see Meta not coming out and telling us exactly what's going on. You know, you asked the question, you know, did essentially the question Is, did the deep state move to Europe? Right. Oh, yes. And, and you know, there is some evidence for that that we had a, an episode recently where a cabinet minister in the UK was fired because essentially labor was investigating journalists. They were outsourcing.
- [69:25]
Emily
Starmers number two, you're talking about Morgan McSweeney.
- [69:29]
Matt Taibbi
Actually, it was Josh Simons, but McSweeney was involved in this as well.
- [69:33]
Emily
This is what Ryan Grimm reported at Dropsite about the center for Digital Countering Digital Hate, which went out after, where I worked at the time, the Federalist. Via Federalist.
- [69:42]
Matt Taibbi
Yes. I, I was one of the people investigated there. There were a number of people.
- [69:48]
Emily
Well, you, they should have investigated you. That was.
- [69:50]
Matt Taibbi
Oh yes, they were right to do that. But yeah, no, the, the, that's something that people have talked about since Trump came in is, is that some of the sort of permanent, permanent state type organizations and sort of capabilities have moved or might have moved to Europe or might have, might have sort of taken leave for a little while. There's a story that's percolating now about Susie Wiles and Cash Patel and some investigations that went on there. And we're going to have some stuff coming out about that that suggests that there is this kind of not exactly accountable to current government's sort of second force out there.
- [70:38]
Emily
Right.
- [70:40]
Matt Taibbi
But who's in charge of it? Right. That's the big question. And we, you're right to say that we thought that, you know, electing Donald Trump would put an end to it in the United States or at least some, some people did. And it's not entirely clear that that's the case anymore. Right. There are factions within the Trump government and we'll have to see which one wins, basically.
- [71:04]
Emily
I guess that's kind of helpful. Matt, I'm really sorry to keep you so long. I am so glad that you're here and so grateful for everything you're doing at Racket and for you taking the time tonight. Thank you.
- [71:14]
Matt Taibbi
Thanks so much, Emily. Appreciate it. Take care.
- [71:16]
Emily
You too. Love, love having Matt here. Please do check out Racket, the new swamp newsletter that they're doing is incredible. It's been, there's been a hole in the market for what they're doing with that. All the other newsletters, literal swamp newsletters, are so often just like advertisements for Lockheed and whomever else, but they're going into the nitty gritty. It's awesome. So I can't recommend it enough. A little bit more when we come back. I'm going to talk about the videos are just released. I'm actually going to show you a video that was just released from that deposition. Bill Clinton. There's some videos of Hillary Clinton. The full video has just been released before we went to air. So clips incoming. Stay tuned. But first, first, a fresh start is possible. Debt can feel like it's getting worse every month, but that only continues if nothing changes. PDS Debt has already helped hundreds of thousands of people rewrite their financial story and take back control in. Your turn can start right now. If you're struggling with credit cards, personal loans or medical bills, PDS Debt creates personalized options to help get you out of debt. They're A plus rated by the Better Business Bureau, have thousands of five star Google reviews and hold a five star rating on trustpilot because their approach works. And the longer you wait, the more interest and fees pile up. If I needed this product, it's what I'd use. So don't wait another month. Change your story in 30 seconds. Get your free personalized assessment and the best option for you@pdsdebt.com Emily that's pdsdebt.com Emily again. PDS debt.com Emily with Verbo Care help
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Emily
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Emily
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Matt Taibbi
And the winner by knockout is Pat.
- [73:29]
Emily
Pat. Bring it on. All right, everyone, like I said, I'm going to close out the show here with some clips from the video of the Clinton depositions and the Epstein case that were dropped right before we went to air like within a couple of hours. And I think the Hillary Clinton one is, is like four hours long. The Bill one has to be hours long as well. So obviously, even on two times speed, I haven't had enough chance to dig into either of them in full. But some clips are starting to pop on the Internet and one really caught my eye of Bill Clinton in particular. This is very interesting. I think you'll know why when you see it. But let's roll, Bill. Remember, this is a deposition by the House Oversight Committee. It was conducted in Chappaqua last week. That's where the Clintons live. And so questioners are members of the House Oversight Committee. You may know people like Lauren Boebert, Nancy Mace, James Comer, those folks. Here's Bill Clinton responding to a very interesting question about what he thinks happened to Jeffrey Epstein. Like to ask you personally and directly, do you believe that Jeffrey Epstein killed himself? Are you asking him to speculate on how Mr. Epstein died? I. I'm asking, I'm going to pause this briefly for the listening audience. It. I just want to point this out also for viewers. Watch how his lawyers, the attorneys on one side and the other side of Bill Clinton react to this. Remember Bill Clinton, I don't need to remind anyone of Slick Willie. Bill Clinton is an attorney himself and is rather incredible at lying and misleading. So we got the Michael Jordan of political lies on the stage right here in the, at the table right here for this deposition. And watch how his lawyers react. You'll hear it if you're just listening as well, what the President thinks. So you're asking his opinion, Mr. President, was your, was your friend Jeffrey Epstein? Are you classifying him as a friend who. He has testified that he was friendly. Friend. In a letter he said he was friendly, but not. You've asked for his testimony, Mr. President, do you believe that Jeffrey Epstein was suicidal? Do you know, was he ever suicidal? Understanding.
- [75:38]
Matt Taibbi
I don't know.
- [75:39]
Emily
I only know what the medical finding was. I think maybe that's it. He finally got caught. And okay, you heard his attorney say that's it. As Clinton said, I think I, I only know what the medical examination was. And then you have this elderly Bill Clinton going on to say, I think maybe he got caught. I'm just going to play the rest of it, too. I don't know. Oh, I've, I've accepted. His lawyer interrupts and then he doesn't know anymore. Mr. President, what did you accept?
- [76:10]
Megan Kelly
That he killed himself or that he did?
- [76:12]
Emily
Not that he did, but I don't know. Yes, sir, they did. We don't. None of us know. In my own mind, I don't know what happened. All right. Importantly, got caught. And I don't know, one more time, I think maybe that's it. He finally got caught. Caught. Did you hear his attorney saying that's it? And then Clinton goes on to say, I think maybe attorney says that's it. Clinton goes on to say, he finally got caught. Now, that could mean many different things. He could have just been speculating and the end of that sentence. If his lawyer hadn't, you know, encouraged him, I should say, well, the end of that, that thought. If his lawyer hadn't encouraged him to end the sentence, the end of that thought. Thought could have been maybe he. I think maybe he got caught and finally decided he needed to end his life. For all we know, that's what Bill Clinton was about to say. In the context, what it sounds like Bill Clinton was saying is he doesn't know. I think maybe he got caught. Dot, dot, dot. He got caught and he ended his life. Or I don't know. I think maybe he got. Got caught and something happened to him. You can say I'm making too much of that little clip because it's possible Bill Clinton meant. I don't know. I really don't know. Maybe he got caught and he just decided to end it. I think if that's what Bill Clinton was saying, he would have finished that thought instead of allowing his lawyer, who says that's it, to make him just stop at that sentence. It's very possible. We just heard a little slip up from former President Clinton there, who has some questions like the rest of us about the extremely bizarre circumstances of Jeffrey Epstein's death in a New York prison. Now, these are not questions only from the fringe, and that's partially why it is now a bit foolish to dismiss concerns that Jeff. Jeffrey Epstein, who was obviously a sexual predator of one kind or another, maybe you believe the wildest conspiracy theories, or maybe you believe that it was all, you know, trafficking of girls who were lying about their age or girls who were of age, and it wasn't really trafficking because it was consensual. I'm not even going to debate the full spectrum of beliefs on Epstein at this point. But whatever you think about what Epstein was doing, he was a sex criminal, obviously. So the very fact that his death was so suspicious and suspicious to the point where even CBS News, when the footage from Epstein's prison cell and prison in general was released, even CBS News was raising questions about the inconsistencies in that. The guards. What happened with the guards is bizarre. Medical examiners. Michael Bodden has raised concerns about the medical examination consistencies in the medical examination. This is not. Not fringe conspiracy territory. So it's possible that what you just saw from Bill Clinton was an admission. That's exactly why you do depositions like this, by the way, because you have somebody for hours and hours and hours, especially somebody like Bill Clinton who likes to talk, who thinks he can answer these questions, who thinks he can spin house oversight, and he's probably a better attorney than his attorneys, to be honest. This is why you do the depositions, because it sounds possible he just slipped up and said, well, maybe he got caught. And what would that mean in the context of Epstein being allegedly dead by suicide in a prison cell? Well, that would mean somebody, quote, caught Jeffrey Epstein. Who might that have been? And why might the former president so casually be wondering if maybe Jeffrey Epstein got caught and ended up dead in a high security prison? There's going to be a lot more to chew on from these Clinton depositions. And I'm telling you, you know, we do this show live at 9pm so even by the end of the night I'll probably have more of a grasp on what came out of those hearings. There's some really fiery moments with Hillary Clinton. The moment where she discovered that somebody had taken a picture of her, one of the House oversight women had taken a picture of her and posted it on social media. She goes furious, she says, hold me in contempt. That's that Hillary Clinton temper that people like Buzz Patterson, guy who held the nuclear football for Bill Clinton wrote about all the way back in, what was that, 1999 or 2000 when he wrote his book behind the Scenes. Hillary Clinton has a famous temper. I think you saw flair in that particular clip from the deposition. Much, much more to come. She's obviously furious that she even has to be there. Bill Clinton much more relaxed than the clips I've seen so far. But that's again, why in the course of a multi hour conversation with somebody who knows a lot, not just about how, not just about Jeffrey Epstein, but how geopolitics work, how the intelligence community works as a former president, former president who seemed to be flirting with the idea that potentially Jeffrey Epstein got, quote unquote, caught and unalived in his prison cell. I'll leave it there for now. We have a lot to get to on Wednesday, those Texas elections again, most important primary, most interesting primary I think in the country happening tomorrow down in Texas. So, you know, we'll have a lot to say about that later this week. Thank you so much for tuning in. I'm so bad about reminding everyone. Subscribe, subscribe. Please subscribe. It helps us. Hit us up on YouTube. Wherever you get your podcast, you can email me at emilyevilmaycare media.com I'll take your questions, especially if you put the subject line happy hour in them on this week's edition of Happy Hour. And we'll see you back here. Crazy news week. Prayers for prayers, prayers, prayers for everyone in harm's way and everyone coping with what's happened over the last seven several days. See you back here on Wednesday, everyone. God bless.
- [82:35]
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